The wound on Gao Wenyan's head was bleeding profusely and looked horrifying. Just when Su Yunyi and Jin Fengnian thought he would die tragically at the hands of Liu Kui, the door was kicked open.

Gao Xun had only rushed in with his men after hearing a noise coming from the prison, and he witnessed Liu Kui committing the crime. He casually drew a long whip from his waist and lashed it at Liu Kui.

The snakeskin whip, tempered and refined, left Liu Kui with torn and bleeding skin. He shrank back in terror and turned around. The moment he saw who it was, his pupils constricted and his whole body trembled uncontrollably.

Su Yunyi immediately shouted, "Lord Gao, arrest this man immediately! He wants Gao Wenyan dead!"

The snakeskin whip hanging at Gao Xun's waist was a treasure passed down to him by his master; a single lash could tear flesh apart. Liu Kui felt a sharp pain in his back, but when he met Gao Xun's hawk-like eyes, he couldn't even speak properly.

"Lord Gao, what brings you here?"

The moment Gao Xun entered, Liu Kui seemed to have become a different person, behaving extremely timidly and cowardly.

"Check on Gao Wenyan." Gao Xun glanced at Liu Kui and then ordered someone to check on Gao Wenyan. Although His Majesty had ordered the three to be detained and kept under guard, they were all successful candidates in the imperial examinations, and if anything happened to them, they would surely be attacked by those old men in the Censorate!

"Using vigilante justice? How dare you!"

Gao Xun stared at the man's eyes for a long time, but couldn't even remember his name.

The officer standing behind him immediately chimed in, "Sir, this is Liu Kui, the one in charge of his detention. He's usually quite timid, but today..."

The speaker hesitated for a moment before cautiously asking, "I feel something's not right. Should we investigate?"

Gao Xun remained silent, focusing instead on the officer examining Gao Wenyan's injuries. The officer's face was grim. "Sir, Gao Wenyan is seriously injured."

Liu Kui was ruthless; the iron chain smashed directly onto his head, leaving two wounds, one in the front and one in the back, staining his face with blood.

Gao Xun: "Take him to the hospital!"

The two dared not delay and quickly sent Gao Wenyan for treatment, fearing that they might accidentally cause his death.

As for Liu Kui...

Gao Xun sneered: "How long have you been at the Dali Temple?"

Liu Kui's lips trembled, his clothes soaked with blood from his back, and he hunched over slightly: "It's been three years."

Three years?

As the commander of the Imperial Guards, Gao Xun had some dealings with the Court of Judicial Review and had been to this place of detention many times. However, he had no impression of Liu Kui, who had been detained for three years. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong, but he felt that something was not so simple.

Su Yunyi and Jin Fengnian were unharmed, but Gao Wenyan, a poor scholar with no power or influence, was half-dead. He certainly knew how to pick his targets.

Gao Wenyan's injuries did not appear to be caused by normal interrogation, but rather by being abused.

"Neither Lord He nor I ordered the interrogation of Gao Wenyan and the others. Did you privately mistreat Gao Wenyan to relieve Lord He and my burden, or did you take money and want to silence him?"

Liu Kui knelt down before Gao Xun with a thud: "Lord Gao, I dare not! Yes, yes..."

He struggled for a long time, his face turning red, but he still couldn't come up with a suitable reason.

He took out the silver from his pocket and presented it to Gao Xun with both hands: "Sir, someone gave me a hundred taels of silver to teach them a lesson, saying it was to vent my anger."

"I just wanted to teach them a lesson, I never expected it to escalate like this! Your Honor, I know I'm guilty! Please have mercy! Please have mercy!"

Liu Kui had an inexplicable quirk: although he usually appeared timid and cowardly, he was actually extremely cruel at heart. When he was on duty, he liked to use insidious methods to torment prisoners.

He won't say anything, and no one will care. Anyway, not many people who get locked up ever get out.

But for some reason, after receiving the silver today, he felt an overwhelming surge of bloodlust and excitement. So when dealing with Gao Wenyan, he acted without restraint and was caught red-handed.

Gao Xun wrapped the silver Liu Kui presented in his clothes and picked it up. A faint fragrance wafted from it. His expression changed slightly, and he tore off a piece of his clothes to wrap the silver up. "Guards, lock Liu Kui up!"

The money has been tampered with; he needs to investigate the clues immediately!

Liu Kui's legs went weak and he collapsed to the ground, allowing others to tie him up and lock him in a cell.

Still shaken, Jin Fengnian whispered to the officer locking Liu Kui's cell, "Brother, could you lock me up with him?"

Official: "?"

Are you sick?

"I want to beat him up!" Jin Fengnian rolled up his sleeves and swung his fist at the other side. This guy was a paper tiger, and he wanted to beat him up right now!

The officer's lips twitched, and he yelled at him, "Stay put, or I'll beat you up!"

Jin Fengnian cursed inwardly, but remained silent until Su Yunyi left, at which point he asked, "Won't they protect each other, officials?"

Su Yunyi smiled and sincerely reminded him, "To be precise, my family also holds official positions, which are hereditary."

Jin Fengnian curled his lip: "So what if you're an official!"

"Being an official is nothing special, why are you taking the imperial examination?" Su Yunyi was worried about Gao Wenyan's injuries and didn't want to talk to Jin Fengnian, but his cheeky tone made him itchy to touch him, so he casually asked.

As he spoke with Jin Fengnian, he pondered the whole story. What he couldn't understand was who wanted to harm the three of them.

Why was the other party so determined to kill Gao Wenyan?

When Jin Fengnian started talking about robes, he sat down on the spot, his legs trembled a couple of times, and he changed his posture. After a long while, he finally answered Su Yunyi's question: "Actually, I don't want to take the imperial examination."

Su Yunyi didn't have time to pay attention to him, but he thought the other party was inviting him to continue his story.

Perhaps due to the loneliness of being locked up for so long, he found himself with an unusually strong urge to express himself.

“My father and my uncle kept pressuring me to study, saying that without power I couldn’t handle our family’s wealth. But you know how stupid I am. My servants said that when I passed the exam, my father immediately went to dig up the wine buried under the tree in the house.”

"But you have no idea how amazing I am. You ask me about the way of benevolence, how would I know? I just wrote something down... Tsk, I'm awesome!"

Su Yunyi suddenly looked up and stared intently at him: "What did you just say?"

Jin Fengnian swallowed hard. Could he say that Su Yunyi was a little scary?

"I said, I said I'm awesome..."

The person opposite me is the top scorer, and he seems to be a bit more impressive.

Anyway, he's not afraid of biting off more than he can chew when he talks big!

Su Yunyi's face turned cold: "Not that sentence! You said you didn't know? What did you write?"

Jin Fengnian scratched his head: "I wasted three years at the academy and I've ruined everything. What can I possibly write? Ren, that's all. I've memorized a bunch of stuff from previous years."

He was just going through the motions; anyway, he had fulfilled his father's requirements.

Su Yunyi suddenly realized: "Now I know why they're targeting Gao Wenyan!"

"He's just a scapegoat!"

"There really is someone targeting you, you idiot!"

Jin Fengnian exploded: "Who are you calling an idiot, you surnamed Su?!"

He just doesn't study; if he did, who knows who would be better!

Gao Wenyan: The most pitiful person in the whole room...